TITANS
by Turretwithaview
Summary: MECH WARRIORS ON AN INHOSPITABLE PLANET. Total AU. Castle, Beckett et all are Space Marines on an inhospitable planet where mining of Telurium offers Earth the chance to survive a little longer. Unfortunately someone has other ideas not only must they fight the freezing temperatures, lethal irradiation and bloodthirsty Phenomorphs native to the planet, they also have to deal with i
1. Chapter 1

**TITANS**

 ** _MECH WARRIORS ON AN INHOSPITABLE PLANET. Total AU. Castle, Beckett et all are Space Marines on an inhospitable planet where mining of Telurium offers Earth the chance to survive a little longer. Unfortunately someone has other ideas and not only do they have to fight the freezing temperatures, lethal irradiation and bloodthirsty Phenomorphs native to the planet, they also have to deal with incursions by some mysterious mercenaries who seem to know more about what is going on than they do. The unit's job is to protect and defend the UN mining facilities and its personnel, but someone is playing a very deep game here and it's not just the facilities and the staff who are in danger of losing their lives … sabotage has loomed its ugly head inside the Units very own heart._**

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 ** _AN: Ok, this is not a new story yet, its simply another crazy idea that popped into my head. My intentions are to complete all unfinished stories before looking at this one again. However, because it is Soooo AU, I'm not even sure I should be thinking about it. So tell me what you think, is the premise above of interest to you? Would you like to see this Fic worked on ... or best to stick it in the never to be opened drawer? Let me know what you think._**

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 **Chapter 1 – The smoke of battle.**

Smoke swirled past the pitted canopy and through it she could make out the flaming wreckage of her latest victim. Tracer swept in an arc across from her right, steadied and settled on something beyond her range of vision, the shattered shell of a smoking structure blocking her view. The cacophony of yells and shouted orders coming through the intercom adding to the sense of chaos and she swallowed to ease the dryness in her throat. She moved her left foot, the whir of hydraulics resonating throughout the cockpit even as she felt the sluggish response. She bit her lip; one of those shells must have exploded closer than she thought.

The HUD abruptly flared with a red warning light to her eight. Grunting in frustration she swung round, cursing under her breath as her unit lethargically responded. She was still sideways-on when the swirling smoke momentarily cleared and she realised she was much …. too …. slow, the battle-scarred black and yellow unit sitting square on to her, rocket launcher already rising into the firing position and she yelled in anger, she still needed another second or two to line up her own weapons …

Suddenly, a crimson coloured unit smashed into the other's side, knocking the Mech off-balance, flailing arms altering the aim of the rocket and the smoking trail whooshed past her with only inches to spare. Somewhere behind her there was a sudden flare of light and the blast made her unit shudder even as she completed the turn.

Another whirl of acrid smoke blurred the scene before her, though not enough to impede her view of the battle taking place before her. Even as the enemy Mech used one arm against the boulder-strewn ground to steady itself, its other was swinging up towards the crimson unit standing over it, pulsar cannon already glowing green in readiness. She held her breath … then allowed it to escape her in a gusty sigh as one of the crimson unit's arms crashed into the cannon, knocking it aside in a shower of sparks while the other fired a long burst from its chain gun into the enemy's exposed flank.

Slowly, the black and yellow Mech sagged, golden globules of hydraulic fluid pumping from severed lines and quickly forming into bubbles which floated aimlessly in the negligible gravity of the planet's surface. She waited, her own weapons lined up on the downed unit, eyes quickly scanning the HUD for any other enemies. There was a small puff of vapour from around the canopy of the downed unit and then a slow lifting of the sharply angled polycarbonate hood. She shook her head, shouting pointlessly at the enemy not to do it … not that the enemy jock could hear her of course.

Even as she watched, the mercenary half stepped, half fell out of the cockpit and staggered to his feet. She watched in horror as his suit began to smoke, gloved hands scrabbling at his face which was already taking on a raw red colour, blisters forming in seconds, mouth agape in an inaudible scream. A sudden bust of machinegun fire picked the tortured body up and flung it like a rag doll against the bullet-scarred surface of the building behind it.

She stared at the now-still shape folded at the base of the ferroconcrete wall, smoke eating away at the remains … there was not enough oxygen for flames to be visible, but the irradiation would none the less reduce them to ashes in in a matter of minutes. What had made him evacuate his cockpit? Fear of being captured? Even a damaged, oxygen-deprived cockpit was preferable to stepping out onto the surface without an EVA suit … even with, it was a harsh and dangerous environment. The muffled whir of hydraulics made her turn her eyes away from what had just recently been a human being and look at the crimson Mech turning towards her.

She could see him through the canopy, wariness lining his face as his hands hit buttons and swivelled the control handles to re-arm and reset weapons on the unit. She thumbed her intercom, "You couldn't do anything else, it was better than being radiated to death."

She could see him raise his eyes from the controls to look across at her, then give a helpless shrug of shoulders before beginning to turn his unit away. She quickly thumbed the intercom again, "By the way, thanks for stepping in."

The crimson Mech paused in mid-turn, upper body swivelling to face her. "You're welcome Beckett, but you're a mess, better cover my six till we can get out of here," and she had to grin despite the recent horror. She could tell from the still sluggish controls that her unit must be pretty messed up, though the self-sealing system seemed to be doing its work, stopping the lethal loss of hydro-fluid. However it also meant dropping the pressure throughout the system, the self-sealing flux would not hold against the usual 200 bars …. unfortunately, that made jockeying this unit the equivalent of driving a bus.

Under normal circumstances she'd object to being reduced to tail-end Charlie, but given the current state of her unit, she had little option. With a simple "Rodger that," she turned to follow the crimson unit in front of her, eyes scanning the HUD for any threats approaching from their rear.

The further they moved away from the wrecked complex behind them, the thinner and less prevalent the smoke became. Topping a small rise in the ground, she turned her head to look eastwards, the twin moons of Arienne-54 rising slowly above the craggy horizon, two creamy white discs against the star-studded darkness beyond. It was beautiful … dangerously and lethally beautiful.

"Blue team, report."

The sudden burst of speech in her ear brought her head sharply round to scan the HUD again, silently cursing herself for getting distracted.

"Three kliks west of your position, no signs of bandits."

"Good to hear, RV at radio mast in ten"

Although she was simply following her team partner and could have left it at that, Beckett was not one to shirk her job. Quickly she typed in the coordinates to the radio mast, plotted the course and studied the terrain for possible ambush points.

About two kliks out she thumbed the intercom, "Hey Red Butt, I'll sweep left at Black Mesa, you take the other side."

"You're just saying that 'cos you like staring at it …" her snort of derision interrupting him, "Ok, but use your thermal sensors, I don't want to have to go all the way round to get _your_ butt out of trouble!"

Grinning, she started moving to his left, quickly switching on the thermal scanners before lifting her head to stare at the outcrop of black rock ahead of them. Black Mesa was one of the many anomalies of this exoplanet, an outcrop of black tourmaline stretching almost one klik in length and about half that in width. The hard, iron-rich mineral outcrop, when viewed from a distance, appeared to have an almost flat top, leading the first miners to come across it to give it its current name.

A quick glance at her team-mate showed him slowing as he approached the north-west corner of the outcrop, obviously waiting for her to reach the other side, with her slower speed it would take her longer to cover the extra distance and she was appreciative of his patience. Not that anyone rushed things on this god-forsaken place. One misstep and you were fried … literally.

As she turned to begin her sweep southwards, her eyes flickered between the thermal imaging and the walls rising high above her, she couldn't help a nervous lick of her lips. There was something menacing about the dark surface rising vertically some twenty meters into the air to her right. Though from a distance it appeared smooth and flat, close up it proved to be a sequence of sharp edges, the dark, light-absorbing rock making shadowy recesses almost indiscernible from jagged outcrops.

Early on, one of the teams had been caught out by mercs hiding in amongst the deeper crevices, the four-man team annihilated as they had swept past, their scanners failing to detect the Mechs within the ore-rich, tourmaline depressions.

A faint glow of heat appeared on the edge of the tactical screen and she nervously gripped the control handles, thumbing the safety covers off the firing buttons, glancing quickly at the display to make sure both rockets and chain gun were armed and ready.

Moving slightly sideways, giving herself more space to manoeuvre, she ordered the on-board computer to sharpen the image. The range was down to about one hundred meters, a quick glance though the canopy showed her nothing but black rock rising from the greyish brown sandy surface ahead of her. The scanner automatically clicked up to the next resolution as she got closer and she let out a breath of relief, though she couldn't help the shudder of revolt that ran through her body.

Angling a little further away from the rocky outcrop to add a bit more space between them, she swung the chain-gun-toting arm out to her right and kept a wary eye on the outcrop. Now that she was closer, the heat source had resolved itself into one of the Slugs … meter-long creatures that looked like a cross between a centipede and a praying mantis. The Phenomorphs as the scientific community had christened them were predatory creatures, implanting endoparasitoid larvae inside living hosts.

The engineers, miners and scientists initially sent to establish the mining facility had been unaware of the danger, climbing out of their vehicles or stepping out of the living quarters to inspect some new discovery or admire the cosmic view.

The discovery of an engineer's corpse some five days into the build, the back of his containment suit torn to shreds and a large, gaping hole where his stomach should have been, was assumed to be some careless accident, the victim's body, already severely irradiated had left little for the medical team to work with. A further three, similar incidents took place over the following weeks, bodies with lacerated suits (two had had torn legs, the third was shredded at the shoulder), calves, thighs and chest that seemed to have exploded outwards and badly irradiated remains that offered few clues as to the cause. The small Security Unit had begun to wonder about some violent criminal within the heterogeneous community; anyone who agreed to go space mining had to be half-crazy anyway.

The first inkling of the real danger was when a group of geologist were gathering mineral samples and had exited their scouter to get a better look at the surface. The driver, sitting patiently at the wheel noticed nothing until one of the geologists suddenly jerked upright, body arching backwards, his equipment falling from his hands.

Before he could react a second geologist suddenly seemed to lose his balance, falling to the ground and beginning to shake a leg violently as he scrambled backwards along the ground. What had made it even more horrifying for the driver, had been the utter silence in which the scene was played out before him; unlike the geologists', his helmet had been on the seat next to him, intercom turned off.

By the time he'd zipped up his EVA suit, secured the helmet and climb out of the vehicle, weapon in hand, the third geologist had scrambled up onto the small outcrop of rock they'd been inspecting and all the driver could hear through the intercom were the agonised screaming of the two squirming prone scientists and the panicked yelling of the third. A slight disturbance just below the surface of the sand and close to the vehicle had caught the driver's eye, but by the time he'd turned to look, there was nothing there. Reaching the first scientist, he'd found the man clutching his leg, whimpering in agony and the lacerated lower half of the suit's leg showed blood welling up through the undergarments. Already the radiation had begun to affect the exposed skin and flesh and yelling at the surviving geologist to help the other member of the group, they'd managed to drag them back and into the safety of the vehicle.

Once back at the base, the medical team had assumed a worst case scenario of amputation, though they were initially reluctant to undertake such radical measures, believing that repair surgery would be sufficient. However, when the two sedated men had been put through the scanners, both had been found to have a living, pulsing parasite imbedded in their legs, one in the muscular tissue of a calf, the other in the thigh. The parasites, about twenty centimetres in length, looking remarkably like a tapeworm and armed with two sets of ferocious teeth on each of its hinged jaws, had been surgically extracted and sent to the biological department for study.

One had died within a matter of hours but the other had survived three days on a diet of blood plasma and protein paste before it too died. What had really astounded the scientists though, had been the exponential grown rate of the parasite. Within those three days it had grown to twice its length and a thickness of about a human wrist.

With rumours of secret experimentation along the lines of the old cult film Alien, the management had been quick to put out orders for no-one to wonder out alone and to remain strictly within the compound structures or vehicles at all times. At first this had worked; for two months no further mishap occasioned by mysterious parasites had disturbed the daily routine of building the mining station or surveying the planet's surface for minerals …. until one of the drilling rigs had been sent back for routine maintenance.

The sudden screaming and flailing legs of one of the mechanics under the rig had his mates grabbing his legs and pulling him out, only to jump back in shock as a creature curled itself upwards from the man's chest, bloody hinged jaws clacking furiously and a myriad of short legs waving threateningly. It had been the maintenance foreman who had reacted quickly, stepping up behind it with an impact hammer. The hammer, used for firing bolts through thick steel, had put a hole the size of a thumb through the creature's head … it had been sufficient to kill it.

The dead creature had gone on display in the mess room until the scientists had convinced the construction manager to let them have it. By then it had been christened _The Slug_ , a name which remained in use despite the scientists claiming there was absolutely nothing sluggish about it.

It had taken another month and a half for them to discover that they burrowed just below the surface in the sandy areas of the terrain, moving incredibly quickly and almost invisibly when they launched an attack. Workers setting up a mesh fence to enclose the future processing plant had suddenly spotted several lines of shifting sand heading rapidly towards them; like something being pulled along under a blanket had been one description.

The workers, puzzled but far from worried, had been saved because of the mesh between them and the oncoming slugs. It had only been then, with three sets of jaws crashing into the fence and trying to chew furiously through the carbon fibre links that the slugs' preferred method of attack was understood. Foundations were dug deeper, structures built on rockier ground and vehicles instructed not to stop on sandy areas unless strictly necessary.

Despite this new understanding, there had still been further incidents. Slugs had been found in cargo loads of minerals being dropped off at the processing plant. Others had been found attached to the undersides of vehicles and some had even used rock outcrops like those of Black Mesa to drop down onto unwary transporters and on one occasion onto the arm of one of the Mechs … the guy had almost shot his own unit's arm off.

The heat source remained within the crevice as Beckett moved her unit past, a slight shifting telling her it was well aware of her presence but appeared to have no intention of moving towards her …. not that it could do anything to her …. other than chew though one of the already weakened hydraulic lines and leave her stranded ….

With the heat source getting further behind her, she brought her attention back to the scene in front, the southern end of the outcrop that much closer now, the sudden blip of a new heat source appearing on the very edge of the tactical screen making her realign the Mech's weapons forward. She couldn't help letting out a sigh of relief as her computer identified the source as MW3. Moments later the crimson Mech suddenly appeared from behind the far end of black rock and turned to face her.

"Come on slow coach! The others will be wondering what's happened to us!"

She ignored the teasing tone, glad to have him in sight even though she'd never admit it. Not that she relied on anyone else normally, but being inside a damaged Mech, ten kliks from base and on your own was not what you wanted on this godforsaken planet. "Hey, I was just admiring the scenery, why are you in such a rush anyway?"

She heard him chuckle and then he was turning away. She was close enough now and stretched out her arm, the mechanical extension outside the cockpit copying her every move exactly … and then she was rapping on the engine cover at the back of his unit, adding, "Come on, I'm hungry, whachu gonna buy me for dinner tonight?"

"You goosing me Beckett?"

She had to laugh out loud and thought about actually doing it, but decided not to, enough was enough. Beyond Black Mesa, the ground began to rise slowly on either side of what might, eons ago, have been a river bed. They kept down on the relatively even ground of the shallow ravine and it was perhaps another five minutes before the blinking light atop the radio beacon came into view. At about the same moment, two heat sources appeared at the top of her screen. Quickly she changed back to surface radar, the range increasing significantly, the two heat sources now appearing as blue triangles a third of the way down the screen, her computer identifying them as the two Blue Team units.

"You two mind getting a move on, me and Twinkle-toes here are getting cramp from standing still!"

"Sorry guys, its Beckett taking a leak back here."

"Hey Red Butt! Who you accusing of taking a leak? I seem to recall you spent most of last night running back and forth between the bar and the bog!"

There was general laughter and then, as they approached the two Mechs waiting at the foot of the beacon, "Hey Beckett, you look like you took some shit there?"

"Yeah Espo, some mercs ambushed us"

"You get them?" the question coming from Ryan, though it was hardly posed as one, more like he already knew what the answer would be.

"One down, one cleared out, smoking like one of the Captain's cigars … don't think he'll make it back. Red Butt here got the other two," said Beckett as all four turned, spreading out into an arrow formation with her at its head. There were a couple of non-committal grunts in answer; it was expected that they win; anything else got turned into a joke.

A cloud of dust over to the west indicated where one of the drill rigs was busy extracting tellurium ore and ahead of them the first of the domes came into view. Beckett scrubbed a hand over her face, exhaustion beginning to work its way into her. Though the units used servos and relays to turn a small amount of human energy into huge mechanical and hydraulic output, battles and skirmishes, however brief, took a massive toll on resistance. She was looking forwards to getting back to the barracks and making use of the steam room.

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· **HUD** – Head-Up Display – (transparent display that presents data on a screen or canopy).

· **EVA Suit** – Extra Vehicular Activity Suit

· **"Roger"** \- "phonetic" for "R" (received and understood". In radio communication)

· **Klik** \- Field Artillery sights were set to Kilometres and when changed made a "Click" sound. Eventually, this became military slang for Kilometre.

· **Exoplanet** \- A planet that does not orbit the Sun, but a different star, a stellar remnant, or a brown dwarf.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 – Hidden Moons of Arienne-54.**

The huge blast doors began to slide open as they approached, the rumble of the mechanism vibrating through the ground, up through the chassis of the Mechs, all the way to the controls in the cockpits. They moved forwards into the decontamination area … the birdbath as they jokingly called it … each of the Mechs lining themselves up over one of the steel grilles in the concrete floor, the blast doors already closing behind them and giving them a perceptible sense of security. Beckett thumbed the switch on the weapons module off, making sure she made her unit's weapons safe, then waited patiently for the decontamination rings above each Mech to slowly drop down from the overhead gantry. Blue-white foam started cascading over the canopy and trailing downwards in interesting, vertical patterns, slowly hiding the view.

Eventually the foam completely obscured the view of the airlock area, so Beckett switched on the belly cam and adjusted the angle until it was pointing down vertically. The floor came into view, her Mech's feet planted squarely on the chevron-painted grill, foam already dripping down her unit's legs and she was able to take in some of the damage on the left one; shrapnel had scratched and dented the armour plaques, a few holes were punched through the hydraulic covers and she could see where the silvery self-sealing flux had repaired some of the lines, allowing her unit to retain its mobility, however reduced it had been. If that was what it looked like from here, she hated to think what it looked like from the outer side.

The decontamination rig came into view; squirting foam over the battle scars as it sank further down until the foam eventually obscured the camera lens. As she raised her head from the screen, the second ring of the decontamination rig began to hose the foam off her canopy, dragging radioactive sand, grit and the invisible, known and unknown bacteria with it. The whole process took nearly three minutes before both rings, now at ground level began to rise smoothly upwards, back to their nesting place amongst the overhead gantry.

She glanced at the light on the inner blast door just in front of her. Saw it change from pulsating red to orange and then turned to look down at the doorway in the far corner. Sure enough, within a few seconds it swung open and two figures in blue decontamination gear stepped out and began a visual check of the Mech closest to them.

From her seat nearly five meters above ground, she soon lost sight of them as they disappeared below the second unit. She turned to the belly cam screen and waited. Soon both men appeared below, black lights flashing over her unit's underside in their search for any clinging slugs or other undesirable critters.

She thumbed the external speaker, "Hey Mike, stop looking up my skirt!"

One of the two paused, head tilting up towards the camera and his tinny voice made its way up to her, "Sorry Beckett, nice legs!"

Eventually she saw them head back towards the door and disappear. The orange light became green and then the inner blast doors swung open, revealing the Mech hanger behind. As soon as they had opened far enough, all four began moving forwards, each heading towards their docking bays. Beckett turned round as she reached hers, used the flashing guide lights to back into her dock and the belly cam to align herself up with the marks on the floor below. As soon as she was correctly lined up, the pulsating guiding lights became a steady green and she waited for the characteristic thump from behind telling her that the overhead clamp had locked onto her unit's engine cover.

She threw a quick glance at the overhead console to check that the light in the centre was green, indicating that everything was correct, and hit the button to kill the engine. Immediately, the gentle rumble and barely perceptible vibrations died, the unit sagging slightly as the hydraulic power was lost, only the overhead clamp insuring the five-ton Mech didn't collapse onto the floor below.

Becket gave the console a once over before the thumb of her left hand pushed the cover up to reveal the biometric sensor on the control handle and she pressed her thumb to it. The braces that held her body to the exoskeleton which in turn controlled the Mech popped open and released her arms, legs and chest from its embrace. Quickly she unstrapped the harness that held her torso to the jockey seat and stood up, stretching and revelling in the sudden freedom.

She stood, removed the CRC from its slot and slipped it into her breast pocket. The contents of the other cards, the equivalent of the old Black Boxes from the twenty-first century, would be downloaded and analysed routinely for mechanical and pilot or 'jock' performance, but the Combat Recording Card would need to be analysed immediately. She turned to the locker at the back of the cockpit and pulled out the bag containing her EVA suit, helmet and the emergency supply kit which apart from the regulation contents also held a couple of personal items, such as a book and the picture of her family which always travelled with her.

After a final glance around, she pulled the lever which released the airtight seal and with a hiss of released pressure, the canopy swung slowly upwards, the familiar smell of the Mech Shop flooding in; a curious mix of hydro-fluids, hot steel and humanity. LT reached down from the maintenance walkway and gave her a helping hand to climb out. Then, with a doleful look on his face, sighed and shook his head at the bullet-pitted side of the cockpit. Beckett bit her lip and pretended to ignore him, knowing full well the maintenance crew would be up all night repairing the Mech, but also just as aware of the fact that they would prefer to do that a hundred times than not have her come back at all.

She and LT moved slowly round the cockpit level walkway inspecting the damage and then descended to the waist level one to take a closer look at the damage to the leg. The merc's rounds had ripped away some of the armour plates from the outside of the Mech's 'thigh' and buckled and torn the inner casing; the large holes and warped steel revealing the pistons and servos beneath. It had been a miracle that none of the rounds had damaged the pistons; a buckled piston would have left her stranded and unable to move. LT pulled a knife from his pocket and scraped away at some of the self-sealing flux. Almost immediately the golden hydro-fluid began to well up and seep down along the pipe. Beckett could see the sheared ends of the tightly woven mesh where a round had clipped the hydraulic pipe.

They completed the inspection at ground level, walking round the huge four-toed feet which allowed the Mech to keep its balance in just about any terrain; LT taking notes as each new sign of damage was inspected. With a final pat on his shoulder and a quiet apology for the long night ahead for him and his crew, she turned to find the other three members of the unit studying her Mech with critical eyes. "What?" she growled out suspiciously.

"What do you think Castle?"

The largest of the three men pursed his lips as if deep in thought and then shook his head with conviction, "Nope, I reckon Mike's got it wrong … my legs are much nicer!"

With a rude sign, Beckett turned and headed for the exit, the others following behind, their laughter and easy camaraderie making her grin quietly to herself. They nodded to the guard in the hallway as they stopped outside the debrief room and Beckett knocked on the door. A gruff "Enter" answered the knock and all four filed into the room.

Captain Montgomery was staring down at the 3D heliographic map on the tactical table, hands resting on the curved steel edge as they supported his weight. He raised his head and stared silently at the four of them, dark face inscrutable, forehead shining in the overhead lighting. His eyes travelled over each of them in turn and then returned to Beckett. "You Ok?"

She nodded, "Yes Sir, unit's a bit beat up, but I'm fine."

He remained silent for a moment, staring at her then allowed a slight sigh to escape his lips before nodding and straightening up. "Good, now, show me what happened exactly."

The four of them moved to the table and both Beckett and Castle removed their CRCs from their breast pockets and slipped them into the overhead display unit. There was a slight disturbance in the air near the 3D miniature representation of the old mining facility abandoned long ago and then the two Red Team Mechs materialised to the southwest of the structure. All five leaned forward and Beckett began explaining how they'd been scouting the derelict structure after reports of 'enemy' movements in the area when a four-man merc team had appeared out of nowhere.

Montgomery swung his head sharply at that, staring hard at her. "You didn't pick them up?"

Beckett shook her head, "No sir, the scanners showed nothing, just the structures and terrain. If it hadn't been for the moons rising to the east … I caught a glint off something, one of the canopies possibly, just in time to see them coming over the lip of the crater," pointing to the depression in the terrain to the north of the structure.

Montgomery looked worried, a frown creasing the otherwise smooth forehead. Recently there had been too many unusual incidents and Red Team's scanners failing to pick up enemy units was just one more inexplicable and worrying incident. Units using the ore-rich tourmaline outcrops to fool enemy scanners was part of the day-to-day combat equation, but these units had been out in the open … probably out of sight within the crater's depression, but they still should have been detected by the scanners.

"Ok," he nodded, "Play it."

Beckett pressed the play button and after a slight blurring quiver, the two holograph Mechs began to move over the terrain towards the old mining facility. Everyone glanced at the crater to the north, but nothing showed within its walls. About twenty meters out, the crimson Mech turned east and began to move parallel to the length of the structure, the cockpit swivelling slowly left and right as Castle had scanned the area.

The second Mech, a much darker red in colour, almost plum red (though Beckett insisted on calling it purple, much to the guys' amusement), moved northwards, scanning the back end of the facility …. still nothing showed within or close to the crater. It wasn't until Beckett's Mech reached the far corner of the structure and was about to turn eastwards that there was a sudden disturbance close to the crater's lip and the four merc units holographed into the scene.

Montgomery raised a hand and Beckett paused the recording. All five looked down at the table. Had the enemy waited just a minute or two more they would have caught her side on, halfway down the structure's length … and with four of them she wouldn't have stood a chance. More worrying still was why the scanners hadn't picked up the enemy units. The CRCs recorded everything involving combat situations; scanner readouts, weapon usage, Mech mobility, radio communications, video feed from the four cameras installed on each unit, air temperature and toxicity, wind speed and a hundred other minutiae which could influence the outcome of a battle and serve to train new recruits or improve performance of combat patrols.

Yet here, four enemy units had been within a hundred meters of Beckett before they had been detected. Montgomery nodded and Beckett pressed the play button again. Even as Beckett's unit turned to face the oncoming mercs, her voice resonated urgently throughout the room from the overhead speakers, "Bandits at twelve o'clock! Four units, one hundred and closing! Engaging!"

Even as she finished speaking, the room was filled with the ripsaw sound of the chainguns firing, the whoosh of a rocket passing too close for comfort, the all-too-familiar sound of bullets hitting armour plating. On the tactical table, her Mech began to back up, closing in on the wall to her right in search of some protection. The closest of the enemy units, now only about eighty meters away moved sideways to get a clearer shot only to have a stream of rounds from Beckett's chain gun rip through the side of the cockpit. Some of the rounds must have penetrated the engine bay; there was a sudden burst of black acrid smoke and the unit shuddered to some internal explosion. Before she could finish him off, two of the other mercs moved in front of him and closed in on her, rockets, pulsar charges and chain gun rounds ripping up the ground around her, blasting holes in the wall to her right and ripping dangerously into her unit's armour.

Meanwhile Castle had quickly (or as quickly as a Mech could move) rounded the far end of the structure and turned towards the attacking mercs just as the plume of black smoke burst from the first unit's engine bay. He watched out of the corner of his eye as two others hurried to shield their comrade, bursts of fire from their weapons impacting on and around the structure's far corner where the scanner indicated Beckett's unit was taking damage. The fourth of the mercs had turned to face him, still over a hundred meters away, rocket launcher attached to the right appendage, chain gun on the left, its barrels already spinning in readiness to fire.

Castle spun as quickly as possible to take cover behind the corner of building just as the rocket swept past him and exploded against the rocky outcrop to the east of the structure and then just as quickly stepped back out. The other jock, assuming he would remain behind the wall had automatically adjusted his aim, probably with the intention of putting a rocket into the corner to weaken the wall and then fire a burst of the chain gun through it to take out the crimson unit. Castle's sudden reappearance caught him off-guard, both weapons aimed several degrees to the right.

Castle's first rocket followed the targeting laser's path and hit the other unit's leg, the impact causing it to stagger slightly as the jock tried to regain his balance. Before he could bring his weapons to bear, Castle was already running down on him, chain gun blasting at the rocket launcher attached to the enemy unit. It was a risky move; the launcher itself being a relatively small target when compared to the rest of the Mech. Whether it was a lucky burst or a well-aimed one was debatable but the effect was immediate. The launcher, with a rocket already loaded and armed burst apart in a shower of sparks and shattered casing before the rocket itself exploded. The blast completely severed the Mech's appendage sending it cartwheeling through the air before smashing into the structure's wall. It also knocked the Mech sideways, the jock unable to keep his balance, even assuming he was still alive or conscious, before falling over and hitting the ground in a cloud of dust which rose lazily into the air.

As Castle ran past the downed unit he fired a burst into the underside of the cockpit. Mechs were not designed to fight prone on the ground and the underbelly was the weakest spot, the thin armour and the electrical and hydraulic machinery under the floor panels made it vulnerable if exposed. Golden bubbles of leaking hydro-fluid glinted through the floating dust particles and he turned his attention back to the remaining mercs.

Beckett could feel her unit taking damage, red warning lights blinking on the maintenance panel even as she staggered under the onslaught of fire. She was close to the wall, almost brushing it, even as she moved backwards, trying to keep as much distance between herself and the enemy Mechs. It also narrowed their field of fire, the wall impeding the second of the two units from getting a clear shot at her, in fact he had decided to circle quickly behind the first one in an obvious attempt to outflank her and come at her from the left.

For the moment she'd have to ignore him, as she did the yelling voice which she subconsciously knew to be Rick's blasting through the speakers. She dropped to one knee, not an easy feat in these top-heavy Mechs, but it reduced the target area for the enemy and allowed her to concentrate both weapons upwards at the approaching merc. She kept both thumbs on the firing buttons, an almost solid wall of tracer from her twin chain guns moving towards her target, striking it, moving up a little then back down to centre on the area where the leg joined the cockpit. Bits of armour shielding, steel membranes and durinium plates disintegrated under the concentrated onslaught, and even as her own unit rocked to an ear-numbing explosion, the enemy Mech burst apart and collapsed, blue-green flames from ignited dry fuel cells and hydro-fluid beginning to leak through the shattered remains.

Tracer swept in an arc across from behind the corner of the building, steadied and settled on something beyond the shattered shell of a smoking structure. She pushed herself to her feet, her unit rocking uncertainly. Beckett bit her lip, moved her left foot, the whir of hydraulics resonating throughout the cockpit even as she felt the sluggish response. The HUD abruptly flared with a red warning light to her eight. Grunting in frustration she swung round, cursing under her breath as her unit lethargically responded. She was still sideways-on when the swirling smoke momentarily cleared and she realised she was much …. too …. slow, the battle-scarred black and yellow unit sitting square on to her, rocket launcher already rising into the firing position and she yelled in anger, she still needed another second or two to turn sufficiently to line up her own weapons …

Suddenly, Castle's Mech appeared through the smoke at a run, the crimson unit smashing into the side of the merc, knocking him off-balance even as he fired. The rocket whooshed past her with only inches to spare, hitting the wall some thirty meters behind her and the blast made her unit shudder even as she completed the turn.

Castle swung an arm as the merc's pulsar cannon angled up towards him and knocked it effortlessly aside before firing a long burst from his chain gun into the enemy's exposed flank. The unit seemed to sag slowly to the ground, golden globules of hydraulic fluid pumping from severed lines and quickly forming into bubbles which floated aimlessly in the negligible gravity. She paused the recording, unwilling to view the enemy jock's final moments of torture.

There was silence from around the table, the holographic images of downed units, smoking wreckage and the yelling voices which still resonated within their heads despite the now silent speakers, held them immobile. As if on cue, they all straightened up and seemed to shake themselves free from the spell of the replayed battle.

Montgomery rubbed his chin, frown still in place as he considered the options. How had the enemy units remained undetected? Had they developed some sort of screening mechanism? Some type of electronic interference which could annul his peoples' scanners? Or was it something more sinister …

* * *

· **Durinium** – Compound armour plating which replaced the old and oft modified Kevlar

· **Dry Fuel** \- HXT Dry Cells. These units produce hho gas (hybrid hydrogen oxygen).


End file.
